Feed the World (Fred Kirschenmann, Organic Farmer)

Fred Kirschenmann is an organic farmer who chooses not to plant genetically engineered seed. He shares his concerns about the use of genetic engineering in food production.

Transcript: Feed the World

Even if we are wildly successful with producing tons of additional corn and soybeans or other commodities as a result of genetic engineering, it's not going to feed the world. I mean, we are producing more corn and soybeans right now than the world can possibly consume and we've got 840 million people who are malnourished on this planet. Hunger is caused by a very complex set of factors. It has to do with everything from local ecologies and local social systems, and fundamentally it boils down to the fact that people aren't entitled to food. It isn't that there isn't enough food available but they're not entitled to it for all of these complex social and ecological factors. Just producing more [food] isn't going to change that. So the reason that I say [it is immoral to the issue of world hunger as a reason to use genetic engineering] is that we are leading the public to believe that all we need to solve the hunger crisis with an expanding population is just produce more stuff, and that's not true.